988 resultados para Reading Practices


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The number of persons with visual impairment in Tanzania is estimated to over 1.6 million. About half a million of these persons are children aged 7-13. Only about 1% of these children are enrolled in schools. The special schools and units are too few and in most cases they are far away from the children’s homes. More and more regular schools are enrolling children with visual impairment, but the schools lack financial resources, tactile teaching materials and trained special education teachers. Children with visual impairment enrolled in regular schools seldom get enough support and often fail in examinations. The general aim of this study was to contribute to increased knowledge and understanding about how teachers can change their teaching practices and thus facilitate the learning of children with visual impairment included in regular classrooms as they participate in an action research project. The project was conducted in a primary school in a poor rural region with a high frequency of blindness and visual impairment. The school was poorly resourced and the average number of pupils per class was 90. The teachers who participated in the collaborative action research project were the 14 teachers who taught blind or visually impaired pupils in grades 4 and 6, in total 6 pupils. The action research project was conducted during a period of 6 months and was carried out in five cycles. The teachers were actively involved in all the project activities; identifying challenges, planning solutions, producing teaching materials, reflecting on outcomes, collaborating and evaluating. Empirical data was collected with questionnaires, interviews, observations and focus group discussions. The findings of the study show that the teachers managed to change their teaching practices through systematic reflection, analysis and collaboration. The teachers produced a variety of tactile teaching materials, which facilitated the learning of the pupils with visual impairment. The pupils learned better and felt more included in the regular classes. The teachers gained new knowledge and skills. They grew professionally and started to collaborate with each other. The study contributes to new knowledge of how collaborative action research can be conducted in the area of special education in a Tanzanian school context. The study has also relevance to the planning of school-based professional development programs and teacher education programs in Tanzania and in other low-income countries. The results also point at strategies which can promote inclusion of children with disabilities in regular schools.

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The report 'Conditions and practices in the commercialisation of innovation in wood industry' has been written as a part of the Wood Academy project. The report analyses the commercialisation conditions and practices of wood industry by utilising product categorisation based on a conceptual schema which combines the aspects of the transfer of the procession of utility and the degree of form/service utility (or value-added) created or provided by the company. Open innovation approaches help to perceive the possible new product and service innovations as well as the new business models and earning logics in the industry. The report also contains brief company cases to demonstrate theory-to-practice and showcase company examples from successful Finnish companies.

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Demand forecasting is one of the fundamental managerial tasks. Most companies do not know their future demands, so they have to make plans based on demand forecasts. The literature offers many methods and approaches for producing forecasts. Former literature points out that even though many forecasting methods and approaches are available, selecting a suitable approach and implementing and managing it is a complex cross-functional matter. However, it’s relatively rare that researches are focused on the differences in forecasting between consumer and industrial companies. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the potential of improving demand forecasting practices for B2B and B2C sectors in the global supply chains. Business to business (B2B) sector produces products for other manufacturing companies. On the other hand, consumer (B2C) sector provides goods for individual buyers. Usually industrial sector have a lower number of customers and closer relationships with them. The research questions of this thesis are: 1) What are the main differences and similarities in demand planning between B2B and B2C sectors? 2) How the forecast performance for industrial and consumer companies can be improved? The main methodological approach in this study is design science, where the main objective is to develop tentative solutions to real-life problems. The research data has been collected from a case company. Evaluation and improving in organizing demand forecasting can be found in three interlinked areas: 1) demand planning operational environment, 2) demand forecasting techniques, 3) demand information sharing scenarios. In this research current B2B and B2C demand practices are presented with further comparison between those two sectors. It was found that B2B and B2C sectors have significant differences in demand practices. This research partly filled the theoretical gap in understanding the difference in forecasting in consumer and industrial sectors. In all these areas, examples of managerial problems are described, and approaches for mitigating these problems are outlined.

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According to the concepts of cognitive neuropsychology, there are two principal routes of reading processing: a lexical route, in which global reading of words occurs and a phonological route, responsible for the conversion of the graphemes into their respective phonemes. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the patterns of cerebral activation in lexical and phonological reading by 13 healthy women with a formal educational level greater than 11 years. Participants were submitted to a silent reading task containing three types of stimuli: real words (irregular and foreign words), nonwords and illegitimate graphic stimuli. An increased number of activated voxels were identified by fMRI in the word reading (lexical processing) than in the nonword reading (phonological processing) task. In word reading, activation was greater than for nonwords in the following areas: superior, middle and inferior frontal gyri, and bilateral superior temporal gyrus, right cerebellum and the left precentral gyrus, as indicated by fMRI. In the reading of nonwords, the activation was predominant in the right cerebellum and in the left superior temporal gyrus. The results of the present study suggest the existence of differences in the patterns of cerebral activation during lexical and phonological reading, with greater involvement of the right hemisphere in reading words than nonwords.

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This basic research focuses on the ethos of health and the human being's becoming in health. The theoretical perspective consists of the caring tradition within caring science developed at Åbo Akademy University. The aim of the present doctoral thesis is to uncover a new understanding as well as to deepen and attain a more nuanced understanding of the ethos of health, the essence of health, by penetrating to the core of what gives the human being the strength for experiencing a becoming in health. The research questions are as follows: l) What is the human being's source of strength? and 2) What reveals the source of strength so that the human being can perceive it and dedicate its strength in order to experience a becoming in health? The primary methodology used in the dissertation is hermeneutical. The material consists of the work Kärlekens gerningar by Kierkegaard, texts from focused interviews with respondents who have lived through severe personal suffering, as well as the book Det bländande mörkret by Wikström. These texts are interpreted through hermeneutical reading. The new horizon of understanding that emerges is reflected towards Eriksson's caritative theory, towards prior research within the tradition of caring science at Åbo Akademy University and towards previous national and international studies within this field. The new understanding shows that the human being's source of strength is love, the essence and origin of life. The substance of health is love, which, through the trinity of faith, hope and love, also makes possible the existence of the source of strength. Love has a deeper dignity than faith and hope, is connected with eternity and is the uniting link between temporality and eternity. The human being's inner longing entails an ontological attraction towards the source of strength. This source of strength is hidden, which provides and maintains its force, like a mystery connected with the darkness of suffering that hides the secret representing the source of strength, life's mystery, bu t w hi ch is revealed in both the darkness of suffering and in the light of joy. The dedication of strength requires freedom, willingness and courage to see the light, despite awareness of shame and guilt. Creative acts liberate the human being for the dedication of strength, which is preceded by a holy presence where, in solitude, the human being makes sacrifices for the sake of his or her human smallness and weakness, and allows himself or herself to be enclosed by the darkness of suffering to discover the light from the source. This entails being enraptured in a quiet "doing" in order to experience the beauty that bears witness to the holy which creates unity. The source of strength is revealed through beauty. The ethos of the human being and the ethos of health have the same fundamental substance, whilst the ethos of life possesses the deepest dimension and concerns the mysterious and infinite eternity. The ethos of life, eternity, which is a wellspring of strength, is not in itself strength-giving unless it is allied with love. Health can be understood in the light of life, of which death is an inevitable part. Life itself constitutes and creates the source which, through its alliance with eternity' s primordial wellspring of strength, generates strength from which the human being's source of strength, love, receives its eternal fervour. The human being is fundamentally interconnected with an abstract other, the first love, a universal wellspring of strength. Through Communion with this abstract other a dedication of the strength to experience a becoming in health becomes possible. Love for one's neighbour is the fundamental substance in the movement of becoming in health. Becoming in health presupposes a simultaneous movement in which the human being practices the human calling through ethos. As one loves one's neighbour through actions the still forces of eternity are in motion. When life emerges in the foreground and becomes the home of the human being, a dedication of the power of love is possible. Life itself determines the human being's becoming in health. A humble fundamental attitude towards life constitutes the basis for a continuous dedication of vitality from this source.

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Drug management of hypertension has been a noticeable example of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on prescription practices. The worldwide leading brands of blood pressure-lowering agents are angiotensin receptor-blocking agents, although they are considered to be simply substitutes of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. Commercial strategies have been based on the results of clinical trials sponsored by drug companies. Most of them presented distortions in their planning, presentation or interpretation that favored the drugs from the sponsor, i.e., corporate bias. Atenolol, an ineffective blood pressure agent in elderly individuals, was the comparator drug in several trials. In a re-analysis of the INSIGHT trial, deaths appeared to have been counted twice. The LIFE trial appears in the title of more than 120 reproductions of the main and flawed trial, as a massive strategy of scientific marketing. Most guidelines have incorporated the corporate bias from the original studies, and the evidence from better designed studies, such as the ALLHAT trial, have been largely ignored. In trials published recently corporate influences have touched on ethical limits. In the ADVANCE trial, elderly patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease or risk factors, allocated to placebo, were not allowed to use diuretic and full doses of an ACE inhibitor, despite the sound evidence of benefit demonstrated in previous trials. As a consequence, they had a 14% higher mortality rate than the participants allocated to the active treatment arm. This reality should be modified immediately, and a greater independence of the academy from the pharmaceutical industry is necessary.

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Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was originally developed to diagnose embryo-related genetic abnormalities for couples who present a high risk of a specific inherited disorder. Because this technology involves embryo selection, the medical, bioethical, and legal implications of the technique have been debated, particularly when it is used to select features that are not related to serious diseases. Although several initiatives have attempted to achieve regulatory harmonization, the diversity of healthcare services available and the presence of cultural differences have hampered attempts to achieve this goal. Thus, in different countries, the provision of PGD and regulatory frameworks reflect the perceptions of scientific groups, legislators, and society regarding this technology. In Brazil, several texts have been analyzed by the National Congress to regulate the use of assisted reproduction technologies. Legislative debates, however, are not conclusive, and limited information has been published on how PGD is specifically regulated. The country requires the development of new regulatory standards to ensure adequate access to this technology and to guarantee its safe practice. This study examined official documents published on PGD regulation in Brazil and demonstrated how little direct oversight of PGD currently exists. It provides relevant information to encourage reflection on a particular regulation model in a Brazilian context, and should serve as part of the basis to enable further reform of the clinical practice of PGD in the country.

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Purpose of this study is to clarify the industrial solutions purchasing process from purchaser companies’ point of view. Also customer’s view on value generating aspects and difficulties in purchases will be discussed as well as different purchas-ing entities where customers have ended up in their solution purchases. Current solution literature is mainly concentrated in supplier views and customer perspec-tive has been left without adequate attention. However, knowledge of the customer and the identification of customer need are at the core of a successful solution business. The focus of this thesis is on Finnish companies’ solution purchases that have been realized during last five years. Industrial solutions in this case are facto-ries or other large industrial plants. Industrial solutions’ purchasing process will be opened all the way from discovering the need until the start-up of the plant. Of in-terest is the customer experience of the success of the acquisition and the pur-chaser’s view on good practices allowing a successful procurement project.

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The main object of this study is to find and define environmentally responsible procurement practices and characterize responsible procurement.

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This study discusses the formation phase of Chinese-Finnish joint ventures in China. The purpose of this thesis is to create best practices for Finnish software companies in forming a joint venture with a local Chinese company in China. Therefore, the main research question, in what are the best practices for forming Sino-Finnish joint ventures in China for Finnish software firms, is examined through four different themes within the joint venture formation phase; the motives, the partner se- lection, the choice of a joint venture type and joint venture negotiations. The theoretical background of the study consists of literature relating to the establishment process of Sino-Western joint ventures in China. The empirical research conducted for this study is based on the expert interviews. The empirical data was gathered via nine semi-structured interviews with both Chinese and Finnish experts in software and technology industry, who have experience or knowledge in establishing Sino-Finnish joint ventures in China. Thematic analysis was used to cat- egorize and interpret the interview data. In addition, a thematic network was built to act as a basis of the analysis. According to the main findings, the main motives for Finnish software companies to establish a joint venture in China are lack of skills or experience, little resources to enter on their own, and China’s large market. The main motives for Chinese companies are to gain new technology or man- agerial skills, and expand internationally. The intellectual property rights (IPR) have recently im- proved a lot in China, but the Finnish companies’ knowledge on IPR is inadequate. The Finnish software companies should conduct a market and industry research in order to understand their po- sition in the market and to find a suitable location and potential joint venture partners. It is essential to define partner selection criteria and partner attributes. In addition, it is important to build the joint venture around complementary motives and a win-win situation between the joint venture partners. The Finnish companies should be prepared that the joint venture negotiations will be challenging and they will take a long time. The challenges can be overcome by gaining understanding about the Chinese culture and business environment. The findings of this study enhance understanding of the joint venture formation phase in China. This study provides guidelines for Finnish software companies to establish a joint venture in China. In addition, this study brings new insights to the Sino-Western joint venture literature with its soft- ware industry context. Future research is, however, necessary in order to gain an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of a joint venture as an entry mode into China for Finnish soft- ware companies